Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Or at least how I came to own Lorna’s Laces. How it all began is really Lorna Miser’s story, not mine.

The short version: I answered an ad in the back of a magazine.

The long version: For eleven years, including all of the 1990’s, I worked in the publishing industry as a college textbook rep. It was a great job for me for a long time. But after awhile, I got bored. Really. Bored. In order to move on to the next step in the industry, I had to be willing to either move to NJ or travel about 25 weeks a year. Since my husband lives in Chicago, I didn’t think NJ was a good choice.

About two years before I finally quit, I spent most of my free time complaining about how much I hated my job. I had a coworker that was as unhappy as I and we fed each other’s misery. One morning my husband, Michael, finally had enough. He told me he was tired of listening to me and said “One of us is going to call your boss today and resign. Do you want to do it or should I?” I think the question was rhetorical. I made the call.

I spent the next couple of years bouncing around. I studied baking at the French Culinary Institute in Manhattan. I walked dogs. I watched way too much daytime TV. I was also baking and selling fancy cookies. Wedding favors and that kind of thing. But, I knew that wasn’t my true calling either.

One Sunday evening, I was thumbing through a knitting magazine (don’t remember which one) looking for inspiration for a new project. It had been a tough week and I was feeling kinda bleak. There, in the back, in one of those little half inch classifieds was the ad. “Hand dyed yarn company for sale. Can be relocated.” I instinctively knew I had stumbled upon IT. I’d always wanted to work in the yarn industry, but I wasn’t quite sure in what capacity and here it was staring at me in black and white.

I jumped up from the couch and asked my husband if he wanted to go for a walk. During that walk I told him about the ad. He thought it sounded like an interesting idea. So, I contacted the seller, Lorna Miser. A month or so later I flew out to California and saw the operation. That was early October. Over the course of the next few months we hammered out the details. In January, I was introduced as the proud new owner of Lorna’s Laces Yarns!!

Crazy business, huh?

So that's the story. And here we are, a little more that four years later and I've decided to enter the blogosphere. Come along on my adventure.